World Challenge Cheaters (and other problems)

[Cranberry]

Has anyone else run across these people yet?

They work in groups of two or more. They pick a game (Volcano Run seems to be a favorite) and they all play really quick games, of just a few seconds to a minute each. Their VR scores are all under 500, for the most part (most players typically get 3000-4000). Then they send their scores, and if the system matches them against each other (as happens a lot, especially when a bunch of them are doing this), they rack up a ton of wins quickly. I saw one guy with 17 Volcano Run wins in the first 7 minutes of the hour last night. This doesn't affect me much, as I play mainly to get the highest score and not the most wins, but it must be really irritating for people who are fairly trying to get the most wins in an hour.

Last edited by Cranberry on Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

[stampsyne]

There are several ways I can see for cheating at world challenge. Which sucks. The 'most wins' can easily be achieved by one player having only two different accounts and quickly send scores from each to match up with each other (especially on longer playing games).

I hate getting a score of +1300 in Carnival of Terror and there is nobody else playing.

[Cranberry]

I hate it when 9 people are playing but you don't get a 10th before the hour is up, so no one gets anything. That happened twice the other night and I was SO tempted to play one game with my secondary account, but I refrained because it's not worth risking both my accounts over. But bleh. I think the person who scores highest for the hour should get their prize, at least, even if there are less than 10 players.

[Erin]

I think the World Challenge as a whole was ill-conceived from the beginning, and it really needs some better planning if they're going to keep it. No one who plays fairly has a chance at getting anything good, and the cheaters definitely don't need more incentive to cheat.

[Cranberry]

I think it's a great idea; it just needs a few little fixes. I think there should be a time limit on games -- even if it's just something like you have to play most of the games for two minutes or more, just to prevent those 30-second players. (Of course, this wouldn't apply to Whack-A-Kass or other very short games.) I also think the "10 players" limit should be knocked down to 5, with the top scorer and the top player (that is, the one with the most wins) each getting pieces. After 10 players join in, it could work how it does right now, because that seems to be going okay.

I disagree that people who play fair can't get anything from it, though. I always go for the highest-scorer piece in Volcano Run, and I completed the entire map in four days or so. I do think something needs to be done about the cheaters, though, because a lot of people go for the "most wins" pieces, and the cheaters are screwing it all up.

[Kess]

I wish they would do away with the monthly kacheekers/armada/geos games and just add them to the world challange. One game per hour against a random opponant. If you win, you get a random chance at a puzzle piece.

[Shifty]

I hate it when 9 people are playing but you don't get a 10th before the hour is up, so no one gets anything. That happened twice the other night and I was SO tempted to play one game with my secondary account, but I refrained because it's not worth risking both my accounts over. But bleh. I think the person who scores highest for the hour should get their prize, at least, even if there are less than 10 players.

That happened to me too. There were 9 players, and I was in 2nd place =\
The only upside to that was, because of my timezone, there are less people, meaning less of a compitition. But still, one more person to submit a score...

And I hope TNT figures how to prevent people from cheating... Like maybe after every game, you will have a list of all your scores that need to be proccessed, and only at the end of the hour, they pair up the scores with everyone else. That way, 2 people ( or one with 2 accounts) can't plan to submit the scores at the same time... It just wouldnt make a difference.

[evilkitten]

I had the same problem with not enough players. So, before the time limit was up, I went to the gaming neo-boards and begged people to send quick scores. That worked. I got about 6 people to send really fast scores and me and the person in second place both recived our prizes.

As for the cheaters, I have noticed them too. I hope TNT is noticing them.

One of the things they can do to fix the people who don't get enough scores is to let people who havent entered the challage let their first three allowed scores count trawrd the challange, whitout entering. I think that would really boost the scores being sent.

Lets all write to the editorial section on The neopian Times, to bring it to their attention.

[jojoneo]

My 10 year old daughter and I were enjoying competing in Extreme Potato Counter the other night. She actually won the piece! We have 2 computers and 2 separate neo accounts here. Later that night I realized that if neo looked at it, it could look like we were cheating... even though we were getting wins and losses against other players as well. Unfortunately, from that point on, we decided it would be best if we didn't compete in the same world challenge... even though it was fun!

Better safe than sorry!

[the_mongoose2020]

Neo needs to implement a rule that you can, say, only send a certain number of challenges within a certain amount of time. This would cut down on some of the cheating I see.

[SierraRaven]

Personally I think the prize should be dependent on the two highest scores, not the most "wins" in an hour. I've seen too many players teaming up with each other, or playing on their secondary accounts, as mentioned above.

I think it's a great idea to move the Multiplayer Tournaments over to the World Challenge. I play the monthly games, and there are just too many problems with them the way they are now.

[Cranberry]

The changed some stuff -- for the better! Here's what it says on Volcano Run right now:

High Score for the hour wins a picture piece! Minimum 5 players required.

Players in the top 3 places listed below win a picture piece for their World Challenge Gallery!

Number of total players: 15 (Minimum of 5 players required for pieces to be awarded to the top winners!) The more players to enter, the more winners!

[calvinorion]

They've added another new feature as well;



I noticed Rink Runner needed one more player to make it to 5 so I thought I'd do a good deed and send score for them but I got the above message instead. I guess from now on I will only be helping out on games I am good at.

[Cranberry]

Oh, yay! They fixed all the things I was complaining about! I had noticed the cheaters weren't around last night -- probably they just weren't allowed to submit their low scores.

World Challenges rock. I'm selling as many picture pieces as I can before they deflate. I'm only going to convert my map if they make a second one available for each world.

[B55B55]

I think it's a great idea; it just needs a few little fixes. I think there should be a time limit on games -- even if it's just something like you have to play most of the games for two minutes or more, just to prevent those 30-second players. (Of course, this wouldn't apply to Whack-A-Kass or other very short games.) I also think the "10 players" limit should be knocked down to 5, with the top scorer and the top player (that is, the one with the most wins) each getting pieces. After 10 players join in, it could work how it does right now, because that seems to be going okay.

I disagree that people who play fair can't get anything from it, though. I always go for the highest-scorer piece in Volcano Run, and I completed the entire map in four days or so. I do think something needs to be done about the cheaters, though, because a lot of people go for the "most wins" pieces, and the cheaters are screwing it all up.

While I do think they have to work harder against cheating (and it does seem like they're trying) Time limits aren't necessarily a great idea.

Many games, dubloon disaster, mereeca chase etc. have a good bit of luck involved. Someone could have the luckiest game of their life and get three fish negs in 30 seconds and then hit a wall. Since a large part of that game is luck instead of skill they do deserve to submit their high score.

I'm not sure how i feel about the minimum score requirment. It depends on how high they set it.